Title:	Individual and Social Protective Factors for Children in Informal Kinship Care
Investigators:	James Gleeson, Principal Investigator Chang-ming Hsieh, Co-Investigator  in collaboration with the Grand Boulevard Federation.
Funding Sources:	Administration on Children, Youth & Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Start/End Dates:	October 2001-September 2004
Description:	This project examines 215 families caring for related children in informal kinship care arrangements in order to identify the strengths, resources, and services needs of these families and how they might change over time. The study also tests the hypotheses that the child's temperament, caregiver stress, functioning of the caregiving family, social support, and financial/material resources predict both change in the child's behavioral functioning and the stability of the child's living arrangement over an 18-month period. Open-ended interviews are conducted with a sub-sample of the children being cared for by these  families to examine their conceptions of family, their sense of belonging, the degree to which they feel a part of a family, and their sense of stability and permanence. Interviews are also conducted with a sub-sample of biological mothers and fathers of the children in the sample to examine their perceptions of the reasons that their children are living with kin, their satisfaction and dissatisfaction with kinship care, and their perceptions of their role in their children's lives and in the lives of the families providing home's for their children.
Title:	Fellowships for Doctoral Candidates and Faculty for Investigator-initiated Research in Child Abuse and Neglect
Investigators:	James Gleeson, Principal Investigator Nicole E. Anderson, Leslie L. Ford, and Claire M. Seryak, Co-investigators
Funding Sources:	Administration for Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Start/End Dates:	October 2003-September 2005
Description:	This grant funds four fellowships to support investigator-initiated research projects conducted by one faculty member and three promising Ph.D. candidates who demonstrate serious interest in and commitment to issues of child maltreatment.  The fellowships cultivate an academic infrastructure, strengthen university-based capacity for child abuse and neglect research, and encourage doctoral-level students and faculty to pursue careers in child abuse and neglect research.  Dr. Gleeson’s faculty project, Individual and Social Protective Factors for Latino Children in Informal Kinship Care, tests whether research procedures used in a larger research project on informal kinship care, are applicable, feasible, and relevant for examining the protective effects of informal kinship care with Latino families.  Nicole Anderson’s dissertation research, A Study of Coping, Caregiving, and Spirituality in a Sample of African-American Informal Kinship Caregivers, is a qualitative study of 30 informal kinship caregivers. Ms. Ford’s dissertation study, Familial Protective Factors and Early Indications of Resilience in Cases of Child Neglect, combines interviews and observations of foster parents, kinship caregivers, and children in their care who entered the custody of the child welfare system because of neglect.  Claire Seryak’s pilot study, The Protective Effects of After School Programming for Children Living in Low-Income, Transient, Residential Motels, tests the feasibility of conducting her dissertation research with a population of children at high risk of abuse and neglect, their families, and after school programs that serve them.

Title:	Reclaiming Futures Cook County Local Evaluation
Investigators:	James Swartz, Principal Investigator Larry Bennett, Co-Investigator
Funding Sources:	Youth Outreach Services, Inc
Start/End Dates:	November 2003-November 2006
Description:	Reclaiming Futures helps teenagers caught in the cycle of drugs, alcohol and crime by promoting juvenile justice-community partnerships to improve drug and alcohol treatment, expand and coordinate services, and find jobs and volunteer work for young people in trouble with the law.  This project will evaluate the local effort, located in the Lawndale community of Chicago, to determine whether the program has produced a positive change in how targeted youth navigate the juvenile justice and substance abuse systems.  In addition, client outcomes will be monitored to explore whether positive results are associated with the use of new treatment protocols and interventions of the Reclaiming Futures program.